Abstract

This dissertation identifies and analyses a common theme in feminist theories of the identity of the self, beginning with Simone de Beauvoir, and continuing through the work of "relational" theorists such as Nancy Chodorow, Carol Gilligan and Jessica Benjamin, and poststructuralist theorists such as Luce Irigaray and Judith Butler. For all of these theorists, the identity of the self is understood to be a form of repression--of nonidentity, of difference, of connection, of "the other." ;I trace this theme back to Simone de Beauvoir's claim that the transition, for women, from the position of Other to the position of Self or Subject requires an entry into the constant struggle against the Other--against other subjects, and against the immanence of one's own body. While contemporary feminist theorists criticize de Beauvoir's positive evaluation of opposition as a basis for selfhood, attempts to rethink the problem of subjectivity have foundered on a tendency to accept de Beauvoir's assumption that the identity of the subject is necessarily based on opposition to, and a struggle for domination of, the other. Relational feminists argue that the ideal of the separate individual self is a specifically masculine ideal which is based on a denial of connection to others. Poststructuralist feminists argue that the ideal of self-identity is a symptom of the logic of Identity which operates through a repression of nonidentity or difference. Thus, self-identity is typically rejected as an ideal, in favor of connection, or of nonidentity. The rejection of self-identity is associated with an increasingly global rejection of any form of identity as repressive: the claim that self-identity is a universal ideal is seen to repress feminine specificity, the claim to feminine specificity is seen to repress differences among women, and the claim that there are women is seen as an expression of a metaphysics of identity entrenched in language. ;I argue that the rejection of identity as a form of repression is symptomatic of a failure to differentiate between domination and mediation, and hence between repressive and nonrepressive forms of identity. I take up Julia Kristeva's model of language and of self-identity as a dialectic between sociosymbolic structures and the practice of subjects, to point toward a theory of nondominating identity, based on an acceptance of both relatedness and separation, and on the expression rather than the repression of nonidentity and difference